


Great Celestial Hieroglyphs

by slyfoxcub



Series: Constellations [5]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Younger!Primarchs, Awkward Friendship, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Ethics, Canon-Typical Violence, Contrived Lore Explantions, Cuddles, Euthanasia, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Graphic Description of Body Transformation, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Magnus Origin Story, Papa Wolf Emperor, The Eighth Legion Have Feelings, The Flesh Change, glass, headcanons, magnus fucks up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28343748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slyfoxcub/pseuds/slyfoxcub
Summary: “Hello Father.”Magnus smiled, white-hot magma seeping from the abyssal gulf that split his skull in twain and hung it with garlands of dismembered stars. His mouth was full of liquid diamond, stained pink with gold and blood.“You finally came.”
Relationships: Emperor of Mankind & Constantine Valdor, Emperor of Mankind & Magnus the Red, Emperor of Mankind & The Primarchs (Warhammer 40.000), Fifteenth Legion & Eighth Legion, Magnus the Red & Amon
Series: Constellations [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1549192
Comments: 51
Kudos: 53





	1. Orbit

Gusts of warm summer wind boomed sedately as they tumbled over the mountain slopes and rustled great swathes of golden wheatgrass. Swirls of cloud, stretched white and wispy, tumbled across a sky so rich a blue that it almost apexed to black.

Crickets scraped out rattling concertos, an underscore for the warbling and chittering choirs for the songbirds that hunted them as they in turn hid in the rambling boundary-hedges from the shadow of the lustre-hawk wheeling overhead in the glare of the bright sun.

Rows of date palms surrounding a whitewashed farm villa cast small spots of shade, in contrast to the brightness of the white walls that reflected the sun’s rays. A window let the light spill onto a large workbench, and glimmer off the myriad of pieces of finely-worked glass; of every colour conceivable, opaque and clear, marbled or mineral-flecked, spun or pane.

Not all of their light was from the sun, though. Some shone steadily or pulsed with an inner glow, drawing from a far more esoteric source.

A strange child sat and dreamed of waking up, then woke up to a dream.  
The golden light burned all that touched it and he flew straight into it, to it’s heart and source. He did not burn, for the light knew him well. It welcomed him, wrapped around him.

“Magnus?” A Man, appearing in the Great Ocean as a large human tanned and hawkish of face wreathed in flickers of solar plasma and a heat-mirage of feathers, arched bones and wire sinew. “What is it?”

Magnus smiled, his body carefully mirrored here as it was in the flesh, letting his excitement and glee ebb forth from where he had rigorously constrained it. “I got it.”

A hot wave of pride dashed into and through him; the sensation-message-projection of being bodily hugged and spun around with laughter booming in his ear. Not the real thing, but almost, and no less heartfelt, and that was what mattered in this place.

“You did it! An official Magister of Prospero; a master artificer too! At eleven years old, no less.”

“I could have done it sooner,” Magnus preened slightly. "Amon made me wait, said I wasn’t ready for the responsibility, but he still let me explore new disciplines at least."

"He has a point," his Father rumbled softly, flaring like a bird settling down in a nest. "Your physical form is underdeveloped and a lack of maturity is to be expected. Nonetheless, I am proud of you."

"So let me grow up already!" Magnus nudged, tugging at the golden coding scrolling across the skin of his Self for emphasis. “You can do it right now, you don’t even need to physically be with me to do it, with me being so strong a Psyker.”

He splashed out his pent-up frustration in emphasis and his hand blurred into a battery of rusted copper spikes from the loss of focus.

Father quickly herded up the rough, spreading edges of Magnus’ Presence and tucked them back in close until they draped even and velvet-cloak orderly about his Self even as Magnus hurriedly reformed his hand.

“Cohesion; guard yourself,” Father chided gruffly, idly flicking the imprint of a sandy valley into existence with a clattering ripple of gilded plating. “And no, I will not remove the genetic block.”

Prickling in frustration, Magnus nevertheless clamped down on his emotions, determined not to give his Father any more ammunition. Instead, he let himself be swept along and nestled in a soft sandy hollow like an errant jackal pup, Father curling around him now sphynx-like and crowned in the crimson and purple of a smoke-tinged sunset. Only then did he push out, jabbing ineffectually but pointedly.  
“Why not? You have no reason not to!”

His answer was a soft, gentle push, heavy with a resolute and slightly smug affection that draped over Magnus like a clockwork wing. It wasn’t fair; how did Father let his emotions run free and shift _with_ him, instead of dissipating or lashing out into strange and unnerving forms?

“You have given me no reason to. You are not defenseless, nor ostracized, and you _just_ said to me that you would have been fully capable of attaining your mastery ranks before now. So tell me, what are you actually being denied?”

Magnus had no retort to that and his contrite stillness only pulled out another deep, purring chuckle.  
“Patience, my son.Your human mentor is correct; you keep pushing forwards, but you need to expand and explore first. Has your work into glass-making not already borne fruit? Do you not enjoy it, or have I been imagining your excitement for it over the past few years?”

“Fine,” Magnus submitted, curling his fingers into the strands of copper wire and photons that, for the moment, served as his Father’s skin.

“Now, explain to me what you made for your mastery!” Father rustled excitedly. “I’ve been itching to see what you came up with!”

Oh yes, Magnus was looking forward to this as well. 

Calling it forth from his memory, with every inner working clear and precise only because he knew every molecule from having formed it, he gave it solid form and cradled the result in his hands.

It wasn’t the real thing so it wouldn’t _work_ , but the programming was all there and Magnus had memories of the successful test runs and the actual presentation…

“Oh! That’s _amazing_ …’”

The awed, almost _gentle_ exclamation caught Magnus entirely off-guard, but Father was already leaning in, twitching in barely-restrained desire to take it apart and see how it worked for himself.  
“No, don’t tell me; let me guess! You keyed different minerals into different matrices, right? Am I right?”

“Yes; I tried to layer them in planes so there wouldn’t be any cross-purposes but then the colours didn’t show up properly. In the end I sort of had to jam it all together in a gearbox facsimile with a central input that would filter each signal with different frequencies and so trigger a different matrix. It’s a bit rushed and ugly but I ran out of time and at least it works-”

“Why are you upset?” Father asked as the hue of Magnus’ form began to fade and the shadows invert. “I meant what I said; it _is_ amazing.”

“But it was supposed to be _better_ ,” Magnus said tightly. “I was going to add so much on to it and it would have been _finished_ but I underestimated how much time it would take to source the metals and then the layering didn’t work how I thought it would and now it’s just a dumb, overly-ornate _mood ring_ like gets sold as children’s trinkets and I spent _months_ -”

“Magnus, it’s _beautiful_.”

It was opaque white Wraithglass, a substance which in itself was made by melting sand with Warpfire instead of a natural heat source. A crude cousin of Aeldari Wraithbone the way a child’s scribbled chalk pictograms were to a master realist painter. 

The milky colour was done by adding bone ash, if the Emperor deduced correctly.

But from the flashes of memory Magnus had let slip free and broadcasted in frustration, there were other metal compounds inside. Glass gained different colours depending on the chemical element within and Magnus had made it so that the unassuming lump would switch colours depending on the emotions of the person touching it.

The bandwidth he had to account for and stacking of matrices interconnected with programming and triggers was astounding and that was _before_ the colouring process came into play.

"Magnus, it's wonderful, I promise. What did you even want to add onto it anyway?"

"It's... it's supposed to play music," Magnus mumbled, sending him a flash of wish-image-memory.

A curved and ribbed vase-like structure with veiny filigree that, when pressed in indentations around the base and neck, lit up a skull-like bulb in vivid colours to vibrate and produce a note depending on the hue.  
While the form was different and more pseudo-mechanical in nature, the design and function was very familiar.

“You were trying to make an Aeldari _Wraithbone Horn_ out of _Wraithglass_ ?”  
Was that even possible? Who would even think of that? But Magnus had been confident he could do it with enough time and resources… But to aim for something that outlandish with only the beginnings of the theory...Magnus always tried to run before he could walk.

“Wraithbone Horns always looked and sounded so beautiful in those memories you showed me,” Magnus shifted, tinged with embarrassment. “But Human Souls don’t have the right psychic signature to make Wraithbone so I thought maybe it was possible to do it with Wraithglass since any species can make that. And now it’s just a dumb ornament.”

“No, no, Magnus; listen. It’s not what you wanted, I understand.” Reassuring purring filled the air, tiny plants sprouting from the sand and leaving gem-like seeds behind as they flowered and died.

“But it’s not the end. After all, now you’re an Artificer in your own right you have less time constraints and can attain better resources. Try again. But this, ah, ‘dumb ornament’ earned you those masteries, so it’s worth something, isn’t it? This is just progress, Son.”

Magnus shook off his discoloured skin for a fresh red one as he unfurled from his frustration. “I...You’re right,” he sighed. “I suppose it’ll be a good paperweight in the meantime while I work on a better one. But if you could show me any more of your memories on Wraithbone and Wraithglass, that would be helpful?”

Father shook his head, a mane of regret and acquiescence ruffling and smoothing down. “Not right now, I’m afraid. You called just before I left Terra and from now on I’m going to have to channel most of my strength and focus to the Astronomicon, since it has no physical structure yet. That said, another of your brothers has been found.”

“Really?!” Magnus started, shedding sparks of crimson ink in excitement. “Which one? What world? How long will it take you to meet him?”

“A day or so Magnus, settle down,” Father laughed as Magnus trailed sheaves of violet ribbons like fluttering wings. “We don’t know which, I’m afraid, but it doesn’t really matter. An Ice World with unstable geography and Feudal technology, though, so it may be a bit of a culture shock for him. A few days, then we can talk again; will you be alright?”

“Yes, it’s perfect actually,” Magnus grinned. “Amon, myself and some others are going on an expedition to the ruins of the City of Hebtza; there are some wall carvings Ahtep wants to study and take rubbings of, Memphia and Cythega think that some of the architecture was designed specifically to amplify and conduct rituals and wants to take measurements and pictures and the others want to see if there are any caches of books or parchments hidden away. I’m going to collaborate and look at everything and we should be finished and back around the same time as you!”

“Alright,” Father dipped his head. “Stay safe, and be careful with potentially-psychic relics. Oh, and remember what I said about those symbols I told you about, and about listening to the Warp.”

“Don’t touch and don’t dive deep,” Magnus rattled out as wrote. “I know, I got it; I can handle myself. You go, and tell Horus hello for me again.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Father grumbled. “Horus sends his love as usual, and yes, I’ll tell him you said hello. He still wants to meet you in person; he doesn’t consider you ‘found’, since you don’t want to come and live with us on Terra yet.”

Magnus laughed. “I will, I will. Lots of things to do on Prospero first though; my place in the Great Crusade can wait a few years. I have to go: a trip to pack for and ruins to explore! Goodbye Father!”

Disconnecting from his Father’s Presence, Magnus hurtled through the Great Ocean, through a dense blue smog of glittering whispers of some of the more harmless immaterial predators that lurked near the Surface, and back into his body.

From the time-piece, only a few minutes had passed, but Amon must have noticed his absence, for Magnus woke to the Material plane to find his mentor standing over him, his craggy face lined with mild concern.

“Magnus? What were you doing, going straight into the Great Ocean all by yourself?”

“I _just_ wanted to talk to my Father,” Magnus reassured as he rose to his feet and stretched, getting back into the movement and certainty of a material body after letting his Soul swim free and shifting.

“Tell him the good news, and that I’d be on a trip to the ruins.”

“Ah,” Amon nodded, some of his worry disappearing. Despite his acceptance of his ward’s otherworldly origins, the implied nature and abilities of Magnus’ progenitor always gave him pause; what sort of being could do these things and still call himself human?

“Well, you better get packing then, or we’re leaving you behind. This is the last chance we’ll get to make the crossing before the sandstorm season makes the Wastes impassable. Oh, and Magnus?” He smiled. “Well done, Magister. I’m proud of you.”

(oOo)

“Magnus? Magnus!”

Amon’s voice barely rose above the shrill buzzing of the swarm and the snapping roar of fire and lightning that accompanied Imhoden’s screaming and Memphia’s incoherent cry-babbling, before the rest of Amon’s voice was drowned out.

Luxanhtep was almost catatonic next to Magnus, biting down on his own knuckles until blood ran down his wrist to keep himself aware and powering the kine-shield protecting the two of them as well as the injured and seizing Thothmes. 

Frantically pouring power into into Luxanhtep and wielding biomancy to stop the flow of blood from Thothmes’ crushed leg and whatever was causing the convulsions, at the same time, without burning both men to ash with his own power, Magnus nonetheless snapped his head up at Amon’s cry.

Too many.

There were too many psychneuein out there to handle and Phanek and Cythega had become cut off from Amon, the once-latent scholars’ spontaneously manifested powers awkward and unwieldy, fear and inexperience making them clumsy and wild. 

Separated from Amon, who was able to fight, they were easy prey. Marbled carapace clustered, darting wings singed and smoking with fire and lightning but chitinous legs and mandibles slashing through any opening.

Amon was a capable fighter but only enough to hold his own and what little powers he had were future-dreams, not combat-applicable. 

Magnus looked down at Thothmes, back to Luxanhtep. If he could save them all...He could do this. He had to. Amon was counting on him.

Breathe in.

_ One hand holds the sea and the other the rope. _

_ The Sea cannot be constrained but it can be poured. _

Breathe out.

Magnus stepped out of Luxanhtep’s shield, immolating and cauterizing Thothmes’ ruined limb as he went.

Warpfire that burned at a steady 1500 degrees was second nature to Magnus by now, after so long making Wraithglass. As easy and unconscious as walking, a swathe of twenty of the wasps shrivelled and smeared themselves across the wind as said Warpfire manifested in their individual digestive tracts before they could take advantage of the unconscious and now unprotected Thothmes and Luxanhtep.

Six had every drop of fluid drained from their bodies, the floating spheres of liquid hardening and warping into morningstars that began to orbit faster and faster around Phanek and Cythega, smashing insectile bodies into paste and protecting the two scholars within the eye of the visceral hurricane.

Imhoden and Memphia were raging cyclones of lightning and fire, uncontrollable but holding their ground. He wrested their plasma from them and struck them unconscious, placing them within his bloody morningstars for their own protection. 

Magnus’ body was starting to  _ ache _ ; it was suited to exercising psychic powers by nature of his creation, but not for forcing unreality onto the Materium for any length of time.    
The reason Pyrokines and Electrokines were such common psykers; simple active energy conversion.

Magnus could do that.   
Knitting a weft of fire into a warp of ion and electron, photons shining cold sapphire ice, he formed a writhing khopesh of ionic charge around his hands and he felled fifteen more with his own body’s skills.

“What are you  _ doing _ ?” Amon screamed as Magnus drew near.

“Saving everyone,” Magnus snapped, teeth gritted from the strain of keeping the other party members safe on the other side of the battle. “You called for me!”

“To find Hastar and Ahtep, you _ idiot _ ! I can’t find them! You were supposed to get everyone to safety and keep them safe! Not run into the middle of the swarm!”

“I can do  _ both _ !” Magnus screamed back, but Amon’s eyes were glazed and glowing. Then he was moving, swaying around the blow of a psychneuein that he  _ couldn’t have seen coming _ and kicking Magnus’ legs from under him so that he stumbled to his knees in such a way that the psychneuein that had been coming at him from behind passed right over his head and hit Amon directly in the chest.

Amon fell, buckling under the weight of the psychneuein bearing him to the ground at an awkward angle that made his leg twist violently beneath him. The creature was dark-carapaced and slavering foam, it’s jaw bloated with a pulsing purple light.

_ Flash _

Amon’s eyes rolled back and he fell limp, deaf to the cracked wail of horror that clawed it’s way out of Magnus’ throat.

_ ‘Let me help you.’ _

What?

A whispering blue curl of incense smoke touched his shoulder and all at once Magnus felt a cooling surge of power sweep through him and shiver under his fingertips.

He didn’t think twice, only acted.

Drained, colourless nebulae veiled his skin, rainbows of static arching like a moon on fire. Twisting them into a chain of heliotrope and sand, he flicked his hand with all the casual ease of a ribbon-dancer.

Twelve psychneuein fell sliced into perfect cross-sections of nine each, that shattered into dust when they hit the ground.

The rest of the diminished swarm gathered and honed in on him, indigo lights strobing as they sought out their prey in desperation to lay their eggs inside his flesh.

Splinters of time and biomancy hit them, hatching the eggs inside their parents. The larvae did as their nature dictated and consumed their unwitting hosts from the inside out, accelerated by unnaturally potent psychic power.

The psychneuein trembled in midair for a few seconds, before splitting apart at the seams into a hail of maggots falling wet and whining to the stone and turning on each other. In the next instant, they were burning, a greasy plume of smoke that drifted up and over the now silent and still battlefield.

A moving barrier faltered, morningstars and their comet-trails of chitin and blood falling and soaking into the sand, unneeded.

“Amon? Amon! No, no no no, c’mon, I’ll fix you, I can do this…’”

But the blue power which had strengthened him before was gone, used up. The psychneuein had laid it’s eggs within the depths of Amon’s brain and time was ticking inexorably onwards.

Magnus was left kneeling in the dust, surrounded by bleeding and unconscious bodies, beyond the gaze of a Father who could not hear him.


	2. Sunspot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *pops out of bubbles* welcome to bath and Body Horror!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPECIFIC CHAPTER WARNINGS:
> 
> Metaphysical Body Horror(gets pretty gross at the end)  
> Soul Rape/Unnecessary Surgery  
> Tzeentch being Nasty  
> Casual reminder that The Emperor is an Eldritch Entity  
> The Warp having whimsical disregard for grammar

The Great Ocean is the sphere of thought, dream, emotion. Madness, when perceived in the raw state.

Languages are meant to structure concepts and thoughtforms into defined labels and transmit it.    
Names have power.

Writing systems, no matter how crude or pictorial, are meant to preserve these defined labels through time and space, to pass on knowledge if the reader but only knows the code.

Knowledge is power.

But if a language and a writing system persists, become inextricably associated with the very things it portrays, then the Ocean will reflect that; the Ocean has many currents. And currents can be used.

The Great Ocean is madness, but the currents, slipstreams and riptides carved by entire epochs of recording and passing on knowledge means that formulae exist. Rituals, spells, enchantments, barriers.

Barriers like the one surrounding Amon. The shapes, the codex-forms, scratched into the flagstones by the grace of any sharpened implement to hand that wouldn’t immediately shatter under the force, and with all the haste of desperation.    
Some were smeared with a hint of blood. The room reeked of  _ I’msorryI’msorrydon’tgodon’tleaveme _ . The source of both was huddled on top of an unused bed.

A knock sounded on the door. “Magnus? Amon? I’m coming in, you had better be decent.”

Thothmes awkwardly pushed the door open with his elbow, his hands full with his crutches. “The Matron asked me to ask you...uh...,” his voice trailed off as he took in the scene. “O-oh...Magnus? Is this your...is this a stasis barrier?”

“Mm,” Magnus grunted in weary assent, eyes hollow as he shredded the blanket he held crumpled in his hands thread by thread. He didn’t look up, wasn’t even looking at Amon.

Crutches clacking loudly in the silence, Thothmes manouvered himself over and eased down beside Magnus. He had to remind himself that Magnus, for all his appearance and ability, was only eleven years old and didn’t have the life experience that came with it.   
“You saved our lives Magnus. I wanted to thank you for that.”

“Not everyone.”

Magnus’ voice was hoarse and cracked with exhaustion and grief. “I failed, ’s my fault.”

“Magnus, I could _ hear his thoughts _ ; he wanted to protect you and he did. Please, honour his choice.    
There’s still time, you know. Psychneuein eggs...they take about a day to hatch. You have half a day left and I  _ know _ ! I know you could keep him in stasis and draw it out, but that’s not right. Let time run it’s course and let him  _ live _ for this short while. Let him eat and drink, set his affairs in order and say goodbye.   
I’m not saying you should take it upon yourself to...finish it...when time is up, but take what time you can with him and then let us all grieve with you.”

Amon would be missed by all of Tizca, but in a twist of cruel irony, at least Magnus was in place to take up his fellow Magister’s responsibilities. Young and hot-headed, yes, but the way he had gathered them all together after the attack and gotten them safely back to the hospital in Tizca...being able to take charge and act decisively under pressure was a rare gift. He just had to learn that not everything was his responsibility, and when to move on.

Speaking of which, Magnus had something of a spark back in his eyes.

“I suppose...I’ll take him back to the house,” he said slowly. “Familiar surroundings. Peace and quiet when he wakes up.”

(oOo)

Magnus’ call was rebuffed by Father’s walls; as he knew it would be, but it didn’t hurt to try.

So he dove straight for the flock of scintillating blue Predators, not to pass through them, but seizing them and applying Pressure.

“That power from before, was it you?!”   
The power and strength to shape Unreality onto the Material Plane could save Amon, and they were weak enough to intimidate…

But they simply fell apart under duress, the dust of their Essence slipping away through the whirling eddies of the deeper Warp, down towards a Presence that, from this far away, seemed to shift and blur in a whispering blue of oil and woodspices that he immediately recognised. A Predator from the Deep?

It made a certain amount of sense. The Surface ones were weak, half-formed things that he could easily overpower; they could barely talk, let alone lend him any meaningful amount of power. But a Deep Entity? Yes.

But that was the Deep! To enter was to constantly fight for your very existence, Magnus knew that much. In return, a Deep Entity could not come to the Surface, only Call to those Calling in turn.

The only part of the Deep that Magnus had been to was Father, and that was different because they were like and like, and Father would never harm him.

And it wasn’t like he could wrest away the power he needed on a whim; he was powerful, but not that powerful, and he was only a manifested Presence, not an Entity in himself. And if there was psychic backlash...his body and Soul could be shattered, and that was one of the  _ better _ cases!

But Amon was dying...and it was his fault. So it was his responsibility to fix it.

Surely if he slipped under for a few seconds, just to take a look, then Surface again, that would be safe enough?

He fell forward, through the Surface.

There is no point in affecting a recreation of his physical form.

Determination becomes a prow of adamantium and bone, accompanied by twin sickled khopesh of anger for clawed fins, designed to catch and rend any that might entangle him. Behind that, everything is streamlined into a piscine tail boned with iron and grief, and scaled with berry clusters of cerulean red denial.

Crocodilian in the way that a lump of quartz might describe one, Magnus rumpled forth and backwhen into the guldy maroons, pintly glombolling thenkway yan soluberrily, janty minooling-

Magnus snapped out, shaking the Entity like a jackal with a rat and the pea-souper of incomprehension that clouded his way crumbled into water. His way clear again, he flung the tattered remains away and watched them burst into a flurry of egg yolks before cruising onwards.

A school of the minor blue-smoke Predators from before fell into his wake and trailed along in his shadow, but otherwise made no move to attack or even hinder him.   
  


Magnus was just about to Surface, when a voice Called to him. A very familiar voice. The same voice as during...Magnus paused and turned to look.

_ ‘Acknowledgment-greeting-salutation!’  _ Burbled the Entity that had a form that was both bird and crustacean at once that was satisfyingly nauseating in a broken lumen-bulb sort of way.  _ ‘You Call me. You seek me.’ _

Relief crawled through Magnus. He’d found it, actually found it. If broadcasting his purpose was all it took, then maybe he wouldn't have wasted- 

No, time had no place here, what mattered was that he nearly had what he came for.

"Why did you give me the power to destroy the Psychneuin?"

The Entity shivered slimily.  _ 'Did not. Just gave you power. Could have used it to save your father then, could have used it to run away with your friends, but no. Used it to destroy and used it up.' _

The words, the  _ logic _ , cut into his skin and drew screaming yellow blood. Truth in Possibility, but not Truth in the Now. Besides, Magnus now knows that the Entity’s Power could save Amon and that it likely doesn’t care about how it’s used anyway as long as what it wants in return is delivered.

“I need-” Magnus stopped himself from finishing with ‘to heal Amon’. He didn’t want a Simian’s Paw scenario where the Entity turned Amon into a shuffling brain-dead corpse or something equally as awful.   
“I need power, as you gave it to me before, to use however I wish and with complete control over it.”

The Entity coiled like a torn wedding robe and smiled a smile of petroleum oil with a mouth like grapeshot. ‘ _ You? Give power gladly. Not like dumb, flat Materials; you understand, tread both Surface and Below, hold innate power. Gave you power before because you are valuable. Potential. So many futures…’’ _

Magnus strummed in orchid and charcoal at the compliment, before the Entity spoke again.  _ ‘Require price. Small price; good price. Want piece of flesh. Flesh of your flesh.’ _

“I’m not giving you anything I need to live a long and healthy life,” Magus retorted. “I want to live, so you’re not getting my hearts or brain or anything like that.”

_ ‘No, no. But still has to be important. Tongue? Finger? A rib?’ _

“I…’” What could he live fully without? All the organs Father had given him were necessary, and losing even part of a limb would affect the coordination of the rest. Nose would be too much, too disfiguring. An ear? Maybe. His hair could cover the missing one, but he was quite attached to a full range of hearing. Tongue or voicebox were also right out.   
“An eye. One eye.”

How he would give the Entity his physical, Material eyeball while they were in the Deep of the Great Ocean remained to be seen. But if that was all the Entity wanted...Amon was worth one eye.

The Entity reached…

_ Contact. _

he [is] held-restrained-compressed(physics clamping down on his non-Euclidean form, wielded by something t-too-o s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-------)

_ he’s nowhere near the Surface _ {how how how}  _ he’s far [too far] down in the Deep and the Entity-! _ _   
  
_

big-Big-bIG-BIg-BIG-BIG-!

[pillars shattering and reforming{ _ look upon my works ye mighty and despair _ }, void to cosmic dust to fire to stone to primordial soup and back again, a cavalcade of bellowing mimes and silent mimics in a carnival of fools pulled hither and thither by the spider’s web, a serpent is born inside an egg made of gold and it suffocates, golems of dust scratching at the inside of suits of armour, lit match and daring outlaw, blame blame blame in every language unborn and some yet to die, and no matter where you look IT is there and that is not the smell of incense that is a forest  _ burning _ -]

(999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999)

protein particulate suspended by phospholipid

chewingchewingchewingchewingchewi-

Bloated-swelling-skin bursting  _ where is my skin? _

It hurts it hurts  _ so much _ it hurts  _ make it stop _ why does it hurt  _ please _ please  _ make it stop- _

**NO!**

Father? Father! Fatherfatherfatherfatherfather-

!

[visions, dreams white with maggots and hauled up from the metatron fathoms in a twisted bundle of liminal echoes, visions of [him], afterimages of that-which-could-yet-be-and-will-not-must-have-happened-long-ago-and-yet-to-come]

{the (C)rimson (K)ing, patchworked and knotted in grief}

{the (G)rieving (F)ather, weeping in the ashes of a garden and of Children and children}

{the (M)irror (C)rowned, enthroned on a seat of Light and Sacrifice}

{the (A)scending (P)rince, nascent and half-formed}

…

[so many more, the eternal tarot forever never read for it is already known]

The {{{CLAW}}} retracts, the [PAIN] is gone and on it’s [tip] is...

An eye, that is his eye, it is made of  _ matter _ and it is in the Great Ocean…

He can feel the [gap] filling with Power.

The Contract is complete.

and then IT is gone and all IT’s court with IT and [he] is back near the Surface.

**MMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGNNNUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSS!!!**

(oOo)

The specimen was fascinating, even if the implications of the events surrounding it’s collection disrupted his calm.

The so-called Kraken arm had been transferred to one of the large cargo-haulers of the Russ Clan fleet, in preparation for their departure. Every settlement had been packed up, the Clans transferring to a nomadic lifestyle as their planet’s orbit entered the phase closest to the system’s sun and a time of meteor showers, volcanic activity, shifting landmass and fierce competition for transient resources.

In the meantime, both Horus and Leman were off exploring, intending to find technologic remnants of the original settlers. Constantine was with them, and Horus had a cool head on his shoulders; and his Intuition was telling him that a shared task would go a long way to strengthening the brothers’ bonds.    
What was disconcerting, though, was the slight murkiness that pervaded the subterranean depths of the mountain range when he viewed it through the Immaterium.

Not Chaos, no. Nor even the Null effect of a Blank. Just a Presence that prickled at the edge of his skin.

He looked deeper, and found Spirits, and less than a handful of nascent godlings. Not dissimilar to the ‘mythological’ beasts and Numen that had once occupied Terra, in his younger days. Formed by collective rumour, stories, superstition and oral traditions, and therefore bound  _ by _ them to certain actions and places. Software more than Entities.   
  


But those things had to have an ignition point; a focus for the legends.

Deep in the planet’s mantle, there is a Shadow that [Dreams].

He retreated, not wanting the World Spirit to wake, if it was even capable of such. He had thought only the Maiden Worlds of the Eldar had them; apparently not.

That was not all about Fenris. The particular example of sea-life in front of him, for one. The genetic structure looked  _ engineered _ , it was so compact, but also had a mind-boggling amount of recessive redundancies; no, it was  _ modular _ ?   
Oh, he  _ had _ to study this species more in-depth at some point, once the Great Crusade had reached a proper momentum for him to delegate and free up some time-

Three separate spikes of  _ surprise/fear/outrage _ shot through his senses, and a second later Constantine’s voice crackled in his vox-bead.

_ “My Lord, there was a cave-in, I-’” _

He was already checking. His sons were only a little shocked and Leman with a minor surface injury that was already healing. Constantine’s elbow was dislocated and arm fractured in multiple places where he was at the centre of the rupture and had the least time to get out of the way, his limb twisted and trapped by the slabs of debris and from where he had wrenched it free.

“They are safe and well, my friend, do not worry,” the Emperor reassured. A touch of his power to Constantine’s familiar body and soul and his arm healed and popped back into place, smoothing out dented armour and realigning servos until the Machine Spirit hummed contentedly. “Be at ease; I will come up to you and extricate them from this predicament.”

Making his excuses to the Fenrisians(and a minor compulsion to not tamper with the shuttle), he set off at a ground-eating lope, honing in on Constantine’s position.

All of a sudden, 

_ pain _ /PAY ATTENTION TO  **_{{{ME}}}_ ** / _ anticipation _ /ANATHEMA, ANATHEMA, WON’T YOU COME FACE  **_{{{ME}}}_ ** ?/ _ pride _

He staggered to a halt from the sheer force of the Call, slumping against a pine tree. And getting summarily doused in powdery snow from it’s shaken branches.   
Despite his best efforts to shut it out, the voice like false-lanterns and shattered ships continued Calling, scratching at his Boundaries heedless of the casual damage it must have been doing to ITself.

What was the Changer of Ways plotting; coming at him directly,  _ knocking _ , almost? It  _ had _ to be a trap, a distraction, an ulterior motive...He had to get to Horus and Leman. Now.

/TOO LATE, ANATHEMA/

The repulsive amount of  _ glee _ in that statement draped slick and oily against his soul and made him gag.    
He could sense Constantine coming closer, worry in his voice and soul as he shouted down the vox-bead.

/COME, ANATHEMA! LOOK UPON YOUR SON!/

_ A red-skinned figure kneeling over a broken body, amidst shattered glass. _

Magnus!

“My Lord!” Constantine skidded to a stop beside him. “Status?”

“The Ruinous Powers...have Magnus. Horus and Leman will be fine. I must fight...guard my body?”

A gauntleted hand gently squeezed his. “Of course.”

He fell beneath the Surface, into the Deep, following the traces of Magnus’ unique soul.

He found him in the Domain of Change.

Magnus laid there, a puddle of ruby and quicksilver peeled apart into ragged spires and writhing neon, framing a pit of delicately wreathed nebulae and bleeding silk.   
And this was not a natural form, he was being held down and splayed open by palpating teeth, silent save for chiming gasps of fear and numb horror.

“ **TZEENTCH** !”

He bellowed the [Name] from a maw large enough to swallow a red giant whole, a thousand million carillon bells pealing loud enough to ignite the atmosphere and shake apart the oceans.    
Claws made of fission reactors and enamelled thread raked at the Boundary, tearing through it. Torn artillery shells beaten into jewelry saturated the other side, slamming great pockets of the Scintillating Legions into dust.

The Imperator paid no attention to them though, nor the flitting Lords of Change, save to tear them to pieces with one of the spinning orrery of molten swords about the gates of Babylon and Rome. He only had eyes for Magnus(mychild-myson-littlespark-preciousflame).

“GIVE HIM BACK!”

But the Changer of Ways was entire Epochs larger, older,  _ crueller _ .

/TOO LATE, ANATHEMA/

IT crowed again. Flakes of ash(or maybe maggots crawling on glass windows) spun through the air.

/HE CAME TO  **{{{ME}}}** !/

A piteous wail of [PAIN] lurched out of Magnus on fifty-three legs and shrivelled up as a {{{CLAW}}} dug into his insides. IT  _ stirred _ ; slowly, leisurely, as one might a cup of tea. A wet ripping sound filled the air, a few torn fragments of silk fluttering wetly in a blooming swirl of green ink that bled from the delicate,  _ shredded _ , insides of Magnus’ form.

“ **[NO!]** ”

The Imperator cried out in [rejection], [denial]. It carried further, pierced whatever veil the Changer of Ways had woven. Magnus heard it; convulsed in a sobbing whine( _ Fatherfatherfather- _ ) and reached out.

So close-!

A Brass Sword struck the Imperator in the tail, insomuch that he  _ had _ limbs. But it was the [link] between his Self and the root-wellspring-citadel of  _ his Domain _ , the Astronomicon. The Servant of the Blood God who had been the first to break through, bellowed it’s Master’s visceral warcry and urged it’s underlings onwards.

Stung by the ambush-impertinence, the Imperator coiled back on himself in a whipcrack that shattered planets and crashed down upon the interlopers like a breaching cetacean. Blood boiled and evaporated into milk and molten gold.

However, more invaders were pushing at his Domain from all sides, seeking to extinguish the fragile, naked flame of the Astronomicon, to plunge Humanity into darkness and feast on the blinded travelers and on those waiting for ships that would never come.    
He had to defend it, he [ _ had _ ] to.

( _ -fatherfatherfather- _ )

Magnus was still Calling out for him. His son was crying out in  _ pain _ for him, the {{{CLAW}}} rooting through his form like a burrowing worm. Vibrantly-hued cosmic dust was being squeezed and mulched into a gaunt, lifeless white, dead and dying stars plucked out and discarded like melon seeds, or marbles. They fell to the ground with a bouncing rattle-roll( _ tik-tik-tik-tiktiktikikikikrrrrrrrrrr- _ ).

He struck out again, keeping curled around the Astronomicon while reaching out.   
But the Changer of Ways had roosted ITself far inside IT’s Domain; he might as well have been trying to reach the Ghoul Stars.

/CHOOSE, ANATHEMA: YOUR SON, OR YOUR SPECIES/

A yammering howl flooded out from him in a colour that only existed as a silicate. Plasma cooled and cracked, lightyear-long chains of chlorine and the nerve-strings of a supernova erupting forth in realization and horror. How dare IT?! How dare IT ask him to  _ choose _ ?!

The hordes of the Ruinous Powers swarmed forth. Those of the Blood God rushed in roaring as their fellows had done, those of Excess slithered helter-skelter and venom-lurid, while those of the Plague God shambled ponderously and slowly ever onward.    
The light of the Imperator, the Astronomicon, seared them all black to the core but they still marched on, ever-replaceable cannon fodder that just kept on being re(never)born. No matter how many were obliterated, they just kept coming, so many that there was always a crack in his guard he had to defend.

Magnus’ screaming cut off.

Blinded, the Imperator lurched forward, adorned in the scorched screams of ghosts fission-etched into the stone of blasted streets, bedecked in dripping marrow and platinum spigots pouring toxic ecstasy into tiled rooms, yellow as hell and splintered fingernails, bones braided into the furrow and grain of cackling stone. The hinterlands blazed with the tempo of awful, twisted hearts.   
He closed [TEETH] into the Changer of Ways.

The Astronomicon guttered.

Ships screamed in the frothing hysteria.

Weeping, drooling blood and black mud from overcrowded teeth, the Imperator held on as long and as deeply as he could, despite knowing that the Changer of Ways was  _ right _ . He couldn’t save both. He had to choose. He had to make a  _ sacrifice _ .

And if there was one thing he had had far too much practice at, it was  _ watching the people he loved suffer _ .

He let go.

He restoked the Astronomicon ever higher, drove out the invading forces and rebuilt and reinforced his Boundaries. And watched, for it was all he could do.

Stutter-stop little chirrups were forced from Magnus’ form as all pretense of restraint was discarded and the {{{CLAW}}} was forced deeper into his stomach. So deep that the apex had long disappeared and the appendage widened into something so big it was  _ tearing Magnus apart _ . He was stretched paper-thin around it, torn edges shivering bonelessly as foreign power crammed into his Self, a Self that was far too small for even a fraction of the being violating it down to the very fret of it’s template and through the  _ other side _ .

Was that even possible? For one of the Ruinous Powers to use a pseudo-Daemonhost? Did the soul of a Primarch make it possible in the first place?  _ Was murdering his son in front of him not profane enough _ ?!

Brown sludge, streaked with a washed-out red, frothed up in sickening belches from the rare gaps when the {{{CLAW}}} flexed( _ dug _ ) a little more sharply, chunks of chrysolite swimming half-chewed in the slop of fluid, pulped, Presence.

A high, rich chiming sound.

Just like that, the {{{CLAW}}} withdrew, star-slick and with a  _ piece of matter on the end _ , pouring power into the grievous wound and filling it up...and leaving.  _ Leaving _ .

Throwing a still-living Magnus out of the Domain of Change.

/TAKE HIM, ANATHEMA/   
The Changer laughed.

/BUT KNOW THAT HE WILL ALWAYS BE MINE AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN/

The Imperator didn’t listen, swooping down to the hinterlands to snatch up his tattered son, with only a desolated outrage rolling off his tongue.

“MMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGNNNUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSS!!!”

(oOo)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry.
> 
> ...
> 
> Actually, no. You definitely should.


	3. Irisation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SPECIFIC CHAPTER WARNINGS:  
> Metaphysical Body Horror/Graphic Description of Injuries  
> Disturbing Imagery in General

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some Fluff in here too.

Magnus wasn’t moving.

That was the only thing on the Emperor’s mind as he enfolded his son to his chest in all twelve of his limbs(four strands of fire, three liquid salt-bone and metal, five feathered) and plummeted, taking the impact on his upper spine.   
They smashed into the sand, carving a sniggering fissure into the dunes and slagging the sand into ice.

He lay there for a moment, ribcage heaving breaths that didn’t exist and he didn’t need, but self-actualization was a thing and it was easier to think about that than-   
He didn’t want to look.

His son or humanity. He had chosen humanity, because he always would and it was marked into his very Self to protect humanity. The Changer knew it too.   
He had sacrificed a child. It wouldn’t be the first time, but the Primarchs were the only ones that he could truly say were  _ of his kind _ and that made it... _ deeper _ . More.

He had sacrificed his own child; that wasn’t what good parents did. Fathers who threw away their own children were worse than scum, not worth the air they breathed; he should know, he’d killed many over his long, long lifetime.    
  


(But if the Astronomicon had gone out, the nascent Imperium would have collapsed and the individual squabbling factions he’d painstakingly brought together would never trust him again. The lost worlds would sink deeper into isolation, the Orks would congress back into their higher-evolutionary counterparts, Drukhari and other predatory factions would be free to roam, the other Primarchs would never be found,  _ she _ would-)   
No; this was not the time for self-rationalizing. Even if it did make it a little less painful.

He didn’t deserve to touch Magnus, but he was a selfish man and Magnus was alive and that was something he didn’t want to let go of. Even if it was nowhere near perfect, he had  _ both _ Magnus and humanity still with him. 

However, Magnus was hurt. He didn’t want to look. A throb of something wet trickling down his chest made him.

Unfurling his limbs, he unformed them, save for two hands that still cradled his son to his Self.

Magnus was breathing; hoarse, whistling shudders, of muscles locked tight to the point of convulsion, despite being a vaguely humanoid-shaped and half-flayed puddle of precious metals.   
More of the same lifeless brown sludge from before was lurching from the wound, forced out by Magnus’ form as it healed as well as by misty filaments of the Changer’s power. It dripped and set over and over like molten wax on shining thread, pallid stalactites of gangrenous mucus that began to disintegrate in solar fire as they came close to touching the Emperor’s manifested Self.   
He let it; he could tell it was superficial mass born of self-actualization, not anything integral. But speaking of which, as the fluid drained away, Magnus took on his usual human form. If he was cognizant enough to mirror his physical form instead of sculpting out of his own raw emotions, he was most likely close to waking up.

That was good. The Emperor almost sobbed in relief, but merely exhaled shakily. For with the return to human form, the wound had transferred as well and looked even more horrific.

Fat round clusters of oily blue slick burgeoned like grapes beneath the flaps of Magnus’ torn skin. Pupae of ivory and silvery ocular fluid hung on ship-chains, dangling into the abyss from the vertebrae of his spine, which itself was twisted into a hideous spiral. Black honey began to pool from petrified intestines, filling the bleak, crawling void which had once housed a glorious array of stars and galaxies wrapped in wind-silk.   
Stars which were now a black rift that nearly bisected Magnus’ form completely.   
From the crease of the inside of his thigh, blistering over his torso and through his throat, splitting open the corner of his mouth and into his eye, it wormed and scratched at the soft, ripped-paper-grain edges. Gelatinous teeth in his chest nibbled on any new stars that tried to form, discarding the husks as a grainy white gel that sounded like the creaking of straining rope fibres. Where the side of his mouth fell into the yawning chasm of his cheekbone, something squirmed like a liquid bruise, winding around the root of his tongue and grinding against painfully exposed molars.

The worst was the eye. Or rather, where the eye had been. The spiralling marks on the inside of Magnus’ flesh were a tell that the organ had not been simply smashed by the blow, but targeted and Cleaved.   
Not merely a Manifestation, not superficial mass like the rest, oh no.

The  _ -hole- _ sizzled with clotted blood, where the veil between Immaterium and Materium had been pierced. Magnus’ physical eye was  _ gone _ , the frayed optic nerve dangling for a moment, before it was subsumed in a flare of white-hot granite. The veil was repaired; but the evidence remained.

The Emperor didn’t know how the Changer had done it; it defied everything known about the Ruinous Powers.   
Or was it  _ his _ fault? Had weaving his Primarchs from equal parts blood and soul left them open to this sort of attack, unsuspecting meat-puppets-in-waiting? Was this some twisted spectacle of a boast?

Even now, the pulsating blue power drained into the hollow scratched into his son’s head, creeping and sucking onto muscle and bone. Condensing; reorienting.

No; this had gone far enough.

He reached out and touched the lodestone in the eye socket with his hand, burning at it as he scooped, seeking to purge the taint.

The reaction was...unexpected.

Magnus  _ screamed _ , shrill and fraying like an evacuation siren, or the death scream of a hunted prey animal. Moved like one too, body thrashing and arching, seizing in and out of rictus even as his vocal cords visibly snapped and with audible  _ twangs _ .

Hot, tight meat slammed like a trap around the Emperor’s hand, the rift sealing shut on his palm. Magnus’ skull was  _ clamped onto him _ . His son still flailing, hanging from his wrist like a fish on a hook.

The Emperor desperately quashed the reflex to wildly shake him off, in spite of the sickening sensation of soft brain matter squishing in between his fingers like curdled protein slurry.    
Instead, he held painfully still as lips of yellow-white fat peeked from the edges of the rent in Magnus’ face and mouthed toothlessly at his protruding wrist like an unweaned pup.

The Corruption  _ wasn’t coming out _ . It had anchored itself into Magnus’ very Self, somehow; deep and integral enough to cause just as much pain as the initial wound. No matter how bright the Emperor burned, it was there to stay.

With a grimace, he disentangled himself from Magnus’ skull, his hand coming away cracked and peeling iron and grass, slick with guttering froth. 

At least...At least Magnus was still and silent now. In fact, breathing easier than before. But that was probably less to do with the Emperor’s short-lived intervention, and more credit to the self-healing wound.

The Corruption was still draining into the hollow of his eye, all crustacean legs and marrow-bone glue in mincing, tweezer-pinching steps down, down, down. But this time it was  _ moving _ , instead of reaching. Pouring into the gap and the rift stitching closed behind.   
No stars though, that he could see. Just glittering white sand, marbled with lavender and amber streaks, in drifts of shrieking razors and tongues of charred asteroid belts. And then the twisted vista was roofed by the cords of muscle and red skin.

Only the eye socket remained, a worming orifice bedecked with star corpses that  _ clack-clacked _ together in the squirming mass like teeth.

Magnus’ good eye snapped wide open with a hacking gurgle that spasmed through his chest and he frantically heaved himself onto his side as he retched spine-shakingly and vomited up dried clusters of seed pods and perfect cubes of bone. His form was tense; naked, sore and scared, Magnus froze, panting heavily.

Thrumming gently, soothingly, in the way that he had when his sons were freshly made and their souls were little more than fluffy, cheeping globe-lumens under his wings, the Emperor wrapped Magnus in his hands and feathers.   
  


It had been a simpler time. Peaceful in the way that certainty was peace. Back when he could afford to spend time in the Immaterium and just  _ be _ . To nestle in the hot sand, the tiny light-spun orbs of his sons’ infant souls nestled inside his naked ribcage in a snuggling, chirruping pile.    
Showing them sense-image-memories of old Earth. Animals, forests, desert wastes that bloomed under the caress of rain, the crash of ocean shorelines and looking down on great plains and mountains after bursting through towering anvils of cloud. 

He’d shown them humans, no,  _ humanity _ . 

Hospitality to a weary traveller, the effusive joy of the inventor, the quiet resolution of the non-violent protester and the firelight passion of the martial revolutionary, the charity of strangers, the desperate hope of the defender, the joyous physicality of the athlete, the awed remembrance of the historian, the bursting excitement of a child, the protective love of a parent, the blind hate of the avenger, the imagination of the artist, the bitter exhaustion of the slave, the confusion of the lost and relief of the found. The drive of the explorer and the stars they found, shining so bright. The wonders they built.

He’d shown it to his sons, and their burbling, childish curiosity and awe bought a fresh lustre to his own experiences. He’d thrummed to them, soothed them in warmth and comfort. Only a few had had the touch of psychic talent to thrum back in little peeps of contentment, but he wrapped himself around all of them the same.

He thrummed to Magnus now, invoking that same message of [safe-warm-rest]. He pressed his thumb into Magnus’ back and shoulders, rubbing strained muscle and bone into something more at ease until his son slumped in boneless bliss in the palms of his hands, purring languidly like a feline. 

Soon though, Magnus began to wriggle in protest, trying to hold himself under his own strength.

The Emperor gently held him down. “Be still and let me hold you; you are deeply wounded.” 

Magnus blinked up at his Father in confusion. Wounded?

There wasn’t any [pain].   
Just a lingering numbness and a vague heaviness in his...head? 

Reaching his hand(nothing except a brilliantly red shade of human, his physical form perfectly recreated down to the fingerprint lines) down, he tentatively traced his face by touch alone.

His finger-tips grazed something sticky, the taste of whiskey and cement filling his mouth like moss. It was  _ wet _ and scabrous and...the feeling went all the way through his eye, from the middle of his cheek and up to his temple.

The eye he had given up.   
  


Oh; well that made sense. But Father felt unreasonably distraught, his thrumming purr rough with grief and words stumbling.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I can’t burn it out. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I almost lost you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He breathed out the words, glad that Father had been unable to undo the Contract, but regretting how the act itself might have looked. “This is...incredible Power. A wellspring...so much Power.” A wellspring indeed, one that would keep yielding Power no matter how much he drew out. It had truly been a beneficial deal.

“Magnus,  _ no _ ,” Father insisted. “It’s foul, corrupted; there will be a price to pay for using it, even if it doesn’t seem obvious at first. I  _ will _ find a way to get it out without hurting you, I promise.”

No, no he couldn’t have that! He had to dissuade him. “Don’t worry; the Contract is already paid for. It’s mine now, I just need to get used to it.”

Father stilled, the underlying thrumming sputtering into sour, tight silence. “What? What do you...Magnus, what did you do? IT said you went to IT, but IT lies, that was a lie, tell me it was a lie Magnus!”    
  


Pleading desperation fogged the air and a horrific weight churned in Magnus’ stomach at hearing his Father speak(beg?) like that. He had to explain; once Father understood, everything would be alright!

“Had to...we were attacked and I made a mistake and I have to fix it. Amon doesn’t have much time left and I have to...have to-”   
The words choked on his tongue as the mournfulness of Father’s demeanour only increased. 

“It wasn’t a lie?” A sickly whisper, before a shudder swept it away in favour of a piercing glare. “No, no it doesn’t matter right now; why didn’t you come to me? I harbour no ill feelings for your mentor, I wouldn’t have turned you away, I could never... _ Maaagnuuuussss _ …’”    
The glare crumpled into a deep keening that roared and whined like the orbit of a celestial body. Father hunched forward and buried his face in Magnus’ sternum, as if afraid he would disappear. Now the keening was rattling directly through Magnus’ chest, the vibrations shaking his bones.   
He coaxed a reassuring thrum from his own core, putting his arms around his Father’s neck and holding him close. He couldn’t think of what else to do other than hold on, his own thrum faltering as it dawned on him that Amon  _ was still dying _ .

“I did, I did Call!” He protested blindly. “But you were busy, I knew you would be because you said before and that’s fine, but please, I have to Surface, I have to save Amon-” Magnus tried to disentangle himself and slip off, pushing away his Father’s face as gently as his haste would allow him, smoothing the way with urgent petitions.

An icy {Command} forced him to hold in place.

[Be still]

Whining, Magnus twitched helplessly, held down under the weight of his Father’s immensity. This was not like anything before, no gentle push of chastisement.

Father was roiling with sharp little flashes of bewilderment and anger. “You could have waited for me. You could have sent an astropathic message to my location for an astropath to alert me manually.”   
Then anger visibly won out, bones and barbed wire tearing through golden skin in a forest of arson and poisoned rivers.    
“I told you not to dive Deep. I tell you that for a reason! Then you go and throw yourself into that thing’s clutches and now look at you! Do you even know the price you paid?! Do you even  _ use _ the brain I gave you?!"

Magnus...had never seen his Father like this before. A strangling mass of thorns and screaming wings, clockwork mechanisms crushing bones and feathers between rolling, red-hot teeth. And what he was saying, he...why was he shouting, Father never shouted like this! Bitumen torrents, pillars of salt and spine, words spat like loose teeth. Father wasn’t like this!   
And what was he saying?! 

Magnus squirmed and wriggled in his Father’s grip, screaming shrilly. A flinch let him slip through, slip free, newfound Power giving him strength like the burning sting of alcohol. 

Yes, Magnus could have done those things, they might have been easier, but he hadn’t made a mistake! He’d made a choice and he would gladly live with the consequences because that was how the freedom of choice worked! And he wouldn’t abuse this power, he was using it to save! Save Amon, save others that had been preyed upon by psychneuin, teach others the secrets of the Great Ocean, raise Tizca to glories undreamed! He would not be belittled!

“Maybe I should have done those things, but no; I didn’t think, because someone I care about was in danger and I had to act! And I didn’t dive! Not-not like that! I was just taking a quick look around, I made sure, I was careful to stay near the Surface, I didn’t throw myself into it!    
You know what? It was worth it. I paid one eye, one eyeball for Amon’s life. And I know what I paid because I  _ used the brain you gave me _ to determine the sacrifice. A sacrifice for someone I love; I’m sure you can  _ relate _ .”   
  


A line crossed. Implications felted from lies but given weight by the soap and lye of eye-searing frustration and panic; wild, unthinking blows with a hidden poison.

Words spoken, never to be taken back.

“How dare...how... **YOU DARE** !”

Magnus is a paper lantern in the eye of a hurricane. A hurricane that screams, faces scratching fanged skin against the nettles until the air bleeds white. Then

Everything

Stood

Still

Father was back in his...usual form. Sphynx-like, dragon-ribbed and many-winged, metal and bone and solar plasma. He towered above Magnus’ form of phosphorous and oil-paper, voice strangely quiet and all the more terrible.

“You dare stand there and  _ lecture _ me about sacrifice? After the birth pangs of human civilization to the horrors of Old Night, and how much death and suffering within? You think I did not love? You think I did not care, only to watch them be taken from me? You think I did not commit atrocities in vain to save them?   
Now you chastise me for my outrage?! One human is not worth it; one mere human is not worth the violation and mutilation of your soul, Magnus! HOW DARE YOU BERATE ME FOR LOVING YOU!”

Why did Father think that it had to be the same? Did he really think that change could not happen, that good things could not happen? That Magnus could not learn from ages past, from  _ him _ , even?

“I WILL SUCCEED WHERE YOU FAILED! You paid your prices and were left alone and broken in a cesspit of human failure! Now look at me; I paid  _ my _ price and now I have power, my loved ones and my world in my hands! YOU DO NOT GET TO SCOLD ME!”

“ **INSOLENT CHILD!** ”

Bloody tears rain down, shaping and solidifying as they hit the sand.

Outrage. Grief. A battle standard rent in twain, a monument defiled, books burning. Clay soldiers marching from the sand and dissolving in the river. A child cast into molten gold, the bell dyed red with sacrifice and peals the scream of innocence lost. A soldier impales himself on his own shattered spear, refusing to fall even after death. A king is trampled to death by his own horse. A chick boiled to death in the eggshell. A mother dashes her infant’s head open against a stone wall.

The tears have teeth. The teeth have dreams and the dreams breathe and are strangled and leave corpses behind.

“ **[LEAVE]!** ”

A clawed paw-!

(oOo)

Amon awoke to the coppery tang of blood hanging heavy in the air and the crackle of ozone. Like an oil painting running it’s colours in the heat of a furnace, the carnage laid itself before him in whorls of discordant and half-remembered music.

He was supposed to be dead or, well, dying. He had Seen it, accepted it knowing that Magnus would be  _ safe _ and would save Prospero in turn.

But the ache of the implanted egg inside his skull, that had pervaded during their mad rush back to the hospital in Tizca, was gone.

His adopted son, red hair matted with sweat onto burnished crimson skin and trembling like an electrocution victim, was kneeling over him. A broad, exhausted smile. One violet-hued eye, watery with tears that dripped down his chin.   
And-   
(a leak, a crack, no a  _ dam _ -)   
An unnaturally straight scar sealing his other eye shut, a thick line of  _ (shining unlight) _ white from the curve of his cheekbone, cutting a path through his eyebrow and stopping at his temple.

“Magnus…what have you done?”

(oOo)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were forced at gunpoint to watch your child be drugged and mutilated, only for your child to afterward be all 'lol, worth it, what are you fussing about?' you'd be pretty hysterical too
> 
> Next chapter we catch up with Constantine.  
> And getting Horus and Leman out of the caves.


End file.
